On Planet Earth, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is a young chief executive officer at 30. In Silicon Valley, he’s just old.

The approach and passing of Zuckerberg’s personal milestone has been a point of reflection (and derision and humor) in the tech community, where the young rule and age is synonymous with antiquated ideas. Zuckerberg summed that up himself seven years ago: “Young people are just smarter,” he said.

Tech’s obsession with youth was the narrative behind of this week’s installment of HBO’s “Silicon Valley.” During the episode, the fictional start-up Pied Piper, struggling to adapt its fledgling code to the cloud, is forced to “insource” a high-school student known as “The Carver.”

Indeed, stories about Zuckerberg this week have read like obituaries, taking a nostalgic stroll through the young Harvard dropout’s storied rise to fame and fortune. “Tonight Show” host Jimmy Fallon wished Zuckerberg a “Happy Birthday” and congratulations for being, at 30, “the youngest person on Facebook.”

But Zuckerberg isn’t nostalgic or resting on his immense fortune. Facebook, like its CEO, is maturing and growing: The ad business helped bring in $2.5 billion in revenue last quarter, a 72% increase year-over year, and the company is inching toward China in an effort to “connect the world.”

It’s been a long journey from the immature antics captured in the Hollywood film “The Social Network” to Zuckerberg’s current role as a tenured tech CEO. His wrestling match with maturity has allowed him to see that, one day, Facebook might become obsolete. But with control of the company’s super voting shares, he’s exhibited a youthful flair by spending more than $20 billion acquiring properties like Instagram, WhatsApp and Oculus VR.